


2. A Day at the Beach

by sahiya



Series: Five Times the Doctor Really Did Not Understand Humans and One Time He Did [2]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Beaches, Friendship, Gen, The Doctor is an alien
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-19
Updated: 2013-12-19
Packaged: 2018-01-05 05:21:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1090084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sahiya/pseuds/sahiya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Donna wasn’t the first companion the Doctor had had who’d asked to be taken to a beach, but she was the first one he was afraid to say no to. So he didn’t.</p>
            </blockquote>





	2. A Day at the Beach

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Canaan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Canaan/gifts).



> Happy Holidays, Canaan!
> 
> This takes place at some nebulous point in S4, probably fairly early on.

_A beach_ , Donna said. That was what she wanted. All of space and time and she wanted a beach. Not that the Doctor had anything against beaches; it was just that they were so _boring_. All humans ever wanted to do at the beach was lie around in the sun, and the Doctor had, frankly, never understood the appeal.

Donna wasn’t the first companion the Doctor had had who’d asked to be taken to a beach, but she was the first one he was afraid to say no to. So he didn’t. There were many different kinds of beaches, after all. How was he to know exactly which kind Donna meant?

(He knew which kind, of course. There was only ever one kind of beach that twenty-first century humans wanted to visit. But there were so many other places to see, people to meet, Zygons to run from, why would you want to lie about on a beach all day and sip fruity drinks with umbrellas in them? Honestly, sometimes humans didn’t know what was good for them.)

The Doctor hadn’t been to Trident’s Peak in nearly two hundred years, not since he’d worn his seventh face. Ace had told him it was the most beautiful place he’d ever taken her, so it was sure to please Donna. And it was, by every definition available, a beach. “You’ll love it,” he told Donna, once the TARDIS had finished shuddering through its landing. “Sparkling sand and crystal clear water.”

“That’s what I’m talking about,” Donna said, putting on her sunglasses. 

The Doctor looked her up and down, taking in Donna’s white cover-up over a bathing suit. “You’re a little under-dressed, aren’t you?”

“For a beach?” Donna said. “Why? I’m not going to get arrested for showing my elbows, am I? Because I will be _pissed_ if I get arrested for showing my elbows on our day at the beach.”

The Doctor took half a step back. “No, no, no, nothing like that. You see it’s just -”

“What?” Donna demanded. “Sparkling sand, _you_ said. Crystal clear water, _you_ said.”

“All those things are true, it’s just that Trident’s Peak is a bit . . .”

“A bit what, Doctor?” Donna asked, dangerously. 

The Doctor opened the door. “Frozen,” he finished. 

It really was a lovely day, once Donna stopped shouting and went and changed into clothes that were appropriate for wandering the frozen beaches of Trident’s Peak. The snow-crusted beach sparkled in the light from the planet’s distant sun, and the water was clear as clear could be - so clear, in fact, that if you walked out and swept the snow aside, you could see down to the sea creatures flitting through the water below the twelve inches of ice. 

“How’s that possible?” Donna asked, crouching down to look more closely. “How can ice be so clear?”

“Oh, you know,” the Doctor said. “Reasons.”

“Reasons?” Donna replied, looking up at him. 

“Do you really care?”

Donna looked back down at the fish. “No, I reckon I don’t.”

Even the Doctor was a bit chilled by the time they headed back to the TARDIS for hot tea and, Donna said, a long soak in the tub. The Doctor hoped that to avoid any further mention of a beach, but no such luck. As soon as they were inside, before she’d even taken off her coat, Donna stopped the Doctor with a finger in the middle of his chest and said, “Don’t think you fooled me for one second.”

“Erm,” the Doctor said. 

“A beach,” she said, enunciating clearly. “A _proper_ beach. With sun and sand and water that isn’t frozen. In fact, the only thing that can be frozen are the blended alcoholic beverages. Are we clear?”

“Yes,” the Doctor said, not bothering to hide his sulky tone. Donna gave him a _look_ and stalked off into the TARDIS, presumably to find the nearest bathtub. 

It wasn’t hard to find the sort of beach Donna wanted. They really were a dime a dozen, and most of them were hopelessly touristy. But some were hard enough to get to that they weren’t completely overrun. By the time Donna had had her bath, some lunch, and a nap - because unlike most of his previous companions, she was unimpressed when he tried to convince her that they had to go somewhere _right then_ \- the Doctor had landed them only a short walk from the pristine beaches of Saturnalia 15. 

“Not a very romantic name, is it?” Donna said, wrinkling her nose when the Doctor told her. “Hardly the best marketing strategy to name a place like this after fourteen other Saturnalias.”

“That’s because Saturnalia 15 doesn’t need marketing,” the Doctor replied, and led the way up the path through the trees to where the beach opened up. And then he wished he hadn’t wasted time faffing about on Trident’s Peak, because he had the singular pleasure of seeing Donna Noble at a loss for words. 

The sand was pink - as pink as anything, much pinker than the so-called pink sand of Bermuda back on Earth - and the water was bright, bright turquoise. Scattered around the bay were little huts on stilts, each of them built over the water. If you didn’t want to stay in your hut and watch the fish through their glass bottoms, there were cabanas all across the sand, where, the Doctor was given to understand, someone would bring you as many fruity drinks with umbrellas as you wanted. If that was the sort of thing you liked.

The resort also offered wind surfing and parasailing and paragliding and scuba diving with every kind of sea creature imaginable. Saturnalia 15 was designed as a pleasure planet with just this purpose in mind. The southern hemisphere, the Doctor told Donna as they made their way across the sand, was dedicated entirely to winter activities. 

She glanced at him sideways. “How much are you going to hate this?” she asked. 

“Oh, quite a lot, I imagine,” he said, sticking his hands in the pockets of his trench coat. It was warm even by his standards, but he refused to take it off. “I just don’t see the point, really.”

“Of enjoying yourself?” Donna said, sweetly. 

“Oi,” he said. “I enjoy myself all the time. I just don’t see the point of enjoying myself by doing nothing. Or by creating a nice, safe, artificial adventure when I could have a real one.” Humans always wanted the adrenaline without the actual risk. But life wasn’t worth living without real risk, the Doctor thought.

Donna eyed him. “You’re going to be dead-bored in ten seconds flat and then you’re going to drive me mad, aren’t you?”

“It’s possible,” the Doctor said. 

She shook her head. “Go,” she said. 

The Doctor’s eyebrows shot up. “What?”

“ _Go_ , you skinny alien git. Go have an adventure, a real adventure, and come back for me in three days.”

The Doctor stared. “But - you won’t be angry at me?”

“I’ll be a sight less angry than if I have to listen to you moaning about how bored you are for the next three days.” Donna’s mouth quirked in a smile. “Go, Doctor. Try not to have too much fun without me.”

The Doctor knew when not to look a gift horse in the mouth. “That would be impossible, Donna Noble,” he said, and started walking backwards back to the TARDIS. “Three days!”

“And not a minute more!” Donna called back. 

The Doctor grinned. _Humans_ , he thought, and wondered if it might not be better to just skip the TARDIS ahead three days and pick Donna up. He could always _say_ he’d had an adventure, after all.


End file.
